Sunday, May 31, 2020
Brazil's President Tries to Shut-Down the Supreme Court to Prevent Investigating His Corruption
Bolsonaro joins rally against Brazil's top court;
judge warns democracy at risk
BRASILIA (Reuters) - Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro joined a rally on Sunday on horseback as supporters urged the closing of the Supreme Court for investigating the right-wing leader, as one of its justices compared the risks to Brazil’s democracy with Hitler’s Germany.
Brazil's President Jair Bolsonaro rides a horse during a meeting with supporters protesting in
his favor, amid the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreak, in Brasilia, Brazil May 31, 2020.
REUTERS/Ueslei Marcelino
Deepening a political crisis during one of the world’s worst novel coronavirus outbreaks, Bolsonaro has slammed the top court for investigating his interference in police affairs and opening an inquiry into his supporters’ alleged libel and intimidation campaigns on social media.
The former army captain and defender of Brazil’s 1964-1985 military government has denounced the investigations, suggesting “absurd orders” should not be followed and warning that the court may “plunge Brazil into a political crisis.”
Brazil has been in a political crisis since Bolsonaro got elected. In fact, I'm not sure there ever was a time when Brazil wasn't in a political crisis.
Bolsonaro flew in a military helicopter over the rally in Brasilia where protesters held banners calling for shutting down Brazil’s Congress and top court, known as the STF. One said: “Military Intervention - close Congress and the STF now.”
Supreme Court Justice Celso de Mello, who is responsible for investigating a former justice minister’s allegation that Bolsonaro tried to meddle with law enforcement for personal reasons, said the president’s supporters were seeking a military dictatorship.
“We must resist the destruction of the democratic order to avoid what happened in the Weimar Republic when Hitler, after he was elected by popular vote ... did not hesitate annulling the constitution and imposing a totalitarian system in 1933,” de Mello told other judges in a message seen by Reuters.
A person familiar with the matter confirmed the authenticity of the message, which was also reported in Brazilian newspapers. De Mello’s office said the message was “exclusively personal.”
Bolsonaro has said his aims are democratic and that his opponents are trampling the constitution in their efforts to oust him.
After his helicopter ride, the president walked to the rally and shook hands with supporters, wearing no face mask despite its use being mandatory in the capital to fight the coronavirus outbreak. He then mounted a police horse and trotted past the crowd.
On Saturday night, a group of masked backers of Bolsonaro marched to the court carrying torches to call for its closure.
Pakistani Man Kills Five Family Members Including Two Wives, a Son and a Daughter
Police later killed the accused who was believed to be mentally ill
Ashfaq Ahmed, Assistant Editor
Gulf News
Dubai: A man in a remote town of Khyber Pakthunkhwa province of Pakistan reportedly killed five members of his family including two wives, a son, a daughter and a daughter-in-law over a petty dispute.
Police later gunned down the accused in an encounter which also left two policemen injured in Batagram town of Khyber Pakhutkhwa. According to the police, the man identified as Jehanzeb Surkheli had shot dead five people including his two wives, a son, a daughter and a daughter-in-law late on Thursday night. He also took hostage four other family members but they were rescued unhurt after the police encounter.
Initial reports says that the accused was mentally ill and opened fire at his family members after some heated arguments. However, Station House Officer Nisar Ahmed said that more details would be revealed after the investigations.
Digs graves
After killing the family members, the accused reportedly started digging graves in the compound of his house in a bid to bury the dead and warned the residents not to enter the house, according to media reports. Later, when the police arrived at the crime scene, the accused took four hostages to opened fire at the policemen as well when he was asked to surrender. Police also returned the fire killing Surkheli on the spot. Two policemen also got injured during the exchange of fire.
Hostages
The four people taken hostage by the accused were also rescued released. They were identified as a son, two daughters and a grandson of the alleged killer. Police said that they were waiting for medical report to confirm mental condition of the killer.
They need not wait. If he was a strong Muslim, he would qualify as mentally ill. Most Pakistanis are strong Muslims:
Islamic Insanity:
“I came to the absolute conviction that it is impossible…impossible… for any human being to read the biography of Mohammed and believe in it, and then emerge a psychologically and mentally healthy person.”
- Syrian Psychiatrist Dr. Wafa Sultan
Saturday, May 30, 2020
This Week's Terrorist Attacks/Stories - 20:22 > USA, India, Russia, Turkey, Kenya
America Burning, Again
It's like 1962 all over again. America is burning. The cause, another cop kills another Blackman who did not appear to be resisting. However, there is a segment of time missing from the various videos from the time they cuffed a calm George Floyd, to when he was face down on the ground with 3 officers kneeling on him, complaining that he could not breathe. By the time medics got there, Floyd was dead.
Predictably, all hell breaks loose over the next few nights as first, Minneapolis breaks into rioting, then, over the next few nights it spreads across the USA like wildfire.
Who, in America, let Satan out of the box?
There are plenty of candidates!
Trump blames Antifa, the Democrats blame Trump, or far-right lunatics, CNN blames Russia (of course, they blame Russia for everything, it saves having to investigate), right-wingers blame George Soros; it goes on and on. There is no shortage of people to blame, and it may be that all are to blame (except Russia).
The anger is well deserved as police in America are taught to diffuse a situation with ruthless violence. And there is no question that there is a certain amount of racism in many police forces. What is quite disturbing is that this has been known for decades and nothing has been done to address it.
Protesting is legal and, apparently necessary. But, it seems protesting has done little to improve the police's exuberant violence against blacks. Is that why the protest turned violent? Or, is there a more political reason behind it? Nothing is ever as straightforward as it seems anymore. It only takes a few people to change a protest into a riot.
Rioting, destruction, fires, looting are not forms of protest; they are anarchy! They must be crushed or they will destroy the whole country. That crushing could sow the seeds of hatred for everyone making it difficult, if not impossible, to ever improve society or ever return to some semblance of normal.
Black leaders must calm the storm or the storm-troopers will. Don't play into the hands of those who want autocracy in America and the world.
Government leaders in Washington, the state-houses, and city halls must apologize for the evils they have committed over many years and commit to training police forces in how to diffuse difficult situations without necessarily using brutal choke-holds and other physical acts of terror.
George Floyd and Officer Derek Chauvin who has been charged with 3rd degree murder.
Police arrest 3 terrorist associates in Kashmir
..
From one family, it would appear
Srinagar, May 31 (IANS) The Jammu and Kashmir Police along with security forces have arrested three terrorist associates of proscribed terror outfit LeT from Sopore in North Kashmir and recovered arms and ammunition from their possession.
According to a police statement Sopore Police along with 22 Rashtriya Rifles unit of the army and CRPF 179 Battalion have arrested three terrorist associates in a joint operation at Shangergund area of Sopore.
They have been identified as Mushtaq Ahmad Mir, Mudasir Ahmad Mir and Athar Shamas Mir, all residents of Sopore.
Police said incriminating materials including arms and ammunition were recovered from their possession.
An FIR has been filed and further investigation has been initiated by the police.
Two Militants Neutralized During Anti-Terror Operation
In Russia's Ingushetia
Fahad Shabbir, UrduPoint 30th May 2020
Two militants have been neutralized during an anti-terror operation in the town of Sunzha in Russia's Ingushetia,
the National Anti-Terrorism Committee (NAC) said on Saturday
MOSCOW (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 30th May, 2020) Two militants have been neutralized during an anti-terror operation in the town of Sunzha in Russia's Ingushetia, the National Anti-Terrorism Committee (NAC) said on Saturday.
Earlier in the day, the security authorities received information that a group of armed bandits was in one of the household outbuildings on the outskirts of Sunzha.
"The area adjacent to the outbuilding was cordoned off. The bandits who were in the building were asked to lay down their arms and surrender to the authorities. In response, they opened fire at law enforcement officers, and during the shootout, two bandits were neutralized," the NAC said in a statement.
The committee also said that the identities of the two militants were established. They intended to carry out several terrorist acts in Ingushetia, the NAC added.
Ingushetia, RU
Police detain pro-Kurdish HDP chairs in
terror probe in southeastern Turkey
May 30 2020 05:28 Gmt+3
Turkish police detained two provincial co-chairs from the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) as part of a terror investigation in the southeastern province of Batman, A Haber news reported on Saturday.
Yes, there really is a province and city named Batman in Turkey. And you thought Turks had no sense of humour!
Ömer Kulpu and Fatma Ablay were detained following a raid of the regional HDP headquarters as part of an investigation launched by the Batman Chief Public Prosecutor’s office, it said.
Police cited banners of the jailed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) leader Abdullah Öcalan, visible from outside the HDP building, as the reason for the raid, pro-Kurdish Mezopotamya news agency reported.
Police also found a large number of photographs belonging to PKK members, in addition to banners, banned publications and digital material, the Batman Governor’s Office said.
The PKK is an armed group that has been at war in Turkey for Kurdish self-rule for over 30 years.
The Turkish government has long accused the HDP of sympathising and acting in the interest of the PKK. Forty mayors who were elected from the HDP in the March 2019 local election in Turkey’s Kurdish-majority regions have been replaced by government-appointed officials and over a dozen arrested on terrorism-related charges.
Two minors, terror suspect killed in Kwale, Kenya, police raid
By CYRUS OMBATI | Standard May 30th 2020
COAST
Two children aged six and three who police claimed were being used as human shield were killed in an anti-terrorism raid in Kwale County.
A terror suspect who was on the run was also killed in the Friday night raid that also left at least four others with serious injuries, including the suspect’s pregnant wife.
The suspected Al-Shabaab militant identified as Mohamed Mapenzi, alias Spanya, was killed in his house in Kibundani by an elite police team that has been trailing him.
Police said Mapenzi threw a grenade at the officers, seriously injuring one. It was then that the officers opened fire killing him together with the two children. The suspect’s wife who was said to be pregnant was also injured and was taken to Msambweni hospital.
According to police, another suspect who was wanted led them to Mapenzi’s house. Police said Saidi Chitswa, alias Ninja, who is also believed to be an Al-Shabaab recruiter, was arrested earlier on following reports he was planning an attack at an unnamed police station. It was after an interrogation that he led police to Mapenzi’s house.
Police said a grenade and assorted jungle uniforms were recovered from the house.
According to Coast head of Directorate of Criminal Investigations Washington Njiru, two other suspects were arrested during the operation. He said the injured officer is in stable condition.
Such incidents have been on the rise in Kwale where most returnees from Somalia are believed to be residing. The Friday night incident comes days after two other suspects were killed in Likoni and Kwale in a similar raid.
The suspect in Kwale, who was identified as Suleiman Ali Kodza, was gunned down a day after he escaped a police dragnet in Mombasa.
Kodza, alias Pembe, who police had termed as the Al-Shabaab ringleader in Diani, was shot and killed in Ngerenya in a dramatic raid.
Police said they are dismantling an active cell in the area and that Kodza is believed to be in the same group with Mapenzi and were planning to carry out an attack at a police station to steal firearms.
Police linked Kodza to the killing of two officers who were guarding St Paul's ACK Church in Ukunda in September 2017.
More personnel have been deployed to the area to address the menace.
Friday, May 29, 2020
Ever Wonder What Deep State is Doing Behind the Scenes?
November 22nd, 1963, was the day Deep State performed a coup
on the United States of America.
They have been largely in charge ever since.
Trump disrupted the order of things and so efforts to remove him
began even before he took office. Obama was certainly involved.
Collapse of Michael Flynn case is latest sign ‘RussiaGate’
was a complete fraud
By Post Editorial Board
NY Post
The US Justice Department is moving to drop charges against Gen. Michael Flynn stemming from the "Russiagate" probe. AP
With the Justice Department moving to drop charges against Gen. Mike Flynn, pretty much the entire “RussiaGate” investigation stands exposed as a fraud. But will any of the witch-hunters pay?
Lefties are already claiming that Attorney General William Barr is simply playing politics, but the facts say otherwise. Brandon Van Grack, a top Justice Department prosecutor and former member of special counsel Bob Mueller’s team, was withdrawn from the Flynn case (indeed, many of his cases) earlier Thursday because he’d plainly abused his power by withholding bombshell evidence from the defense and the court.
Flynn’s supposed crime was lying to FBI agents in a January 2017 interview at the White House. Yet the concealed evidence included 1) a top FBI official’s notes suggesting the entire purpose of the interview was to catch Flynn in a lie, or get him to admit to a technical violation of the Logan Act — all in order to force him from office. And 2) an internal Justice Department memo, from the day before that interview, calling on the FBI to close the Flynn investigation because agents had dug up absolutely no wrongdoing.
In fact, they already had the transcript of Flynn’s call with the Russian ambassador that was the supposed reason for the interview — and knew he’d said nothing improper, just things an incoming national-security adviser should discuss.
Now-disgraced agent Peter Strzok intervened to keep the case open anyway and proceed to the interview, which even then-FBI chief Jim Comey later admitted was in violation of multiple standard procedures.
Yet both Strzok and the other agent in the interview left agreeing that Flynn hadn’t attempted any deception at all. It was months later that prosecutors working under Mueller decided that he had lied — and proceeded to nearly bankrupt Flynn with legal fees, then threaten to prosecute his son, before the general finally agreed to plead guilty.
This is how Deep State America works, people!
And this is hardly the only recent eye-opener: Soon-to-be-released transcripts of 2017-18 House Intelligence Committee interviews reportedly show that the FBI’s Russia investigation had come up empty all across the board before President Trump even took office.
Ironically, current Intel Committee Chairman Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) has apparently been pushing to prevent the release — perhaps because he for years has claimed he saw “direct evidence” of Trump-Russia collusion that neither the FBI nor even Mueller’s endless probe ever found.
It seems that none of the 53 witnesses interviewed by the committee — including Obama officials Jim Clapper, Loretta Lynch, Sam Power, Susan Rice, Sally Yates and Andrew McCabe — said they’d seen any evidence of collusion.
Indeed, it looks like the only “evidence” the FBI ever had was the hearsay claims (which various Russians were paid to make) in the opposition-research dossier that Hillary Clinton’s campaign commissioned — a fact that the FBI and Justice Department concealed from the courts even as it was the only basis for their wiretap requests.
No wonder Schiff is trying to delay: Democrats need all this stuff swept under the rug until after Election Day.
===========================================================================================
EXPLOSIVE transcripts show Flynn wanted to work with Russia against ISIS, Kislyak warned Trump ‘Russiagate’ was targeting HIM
Caution: This story comes from RT so bias is certainly possible if not mandatory.
Heavily redacted cover page from the declassified transcript between Gen. Michael Flynn and
Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak © screenshot
Transcripts of conversations with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak show that incoming National Security Adviser Michael Flynn was looking out for US interests and sought Russian help against terrorists, while the FBI framed him.
Flynn and Kislyak spoke several times in December 2016 and January 2017, during the presidential transition. Within days of President Donald Trump’s inauguration, the FBI interviewed Flynn with an intent – as shown by recently published documents – to catch him in a perjury trap. After a description of his call with Kislyak was leaked to the Washington Post, Flynn was accused of misleading the White House about the calls and pressured to resign.
Those invested in the ‘Russiagate’ conspiracy theory have claimed for years that Flynn discussed easing US sanction against Moscow.
Actual transcripts of the calls, made public on Friday by Senator Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), paint a drastically different picture. They show Flynn asking Moscow to not play the game of “tit-for-tat” escalation triggered by outgoing President Barack Obama’s expulsion of Russian diplomats, that would have “boxed in” the incoming president – and seeking to work together with Russia against “a common threat in the Middle East,” which from the context appears to be a reference to Islamic State terrorists.
“Do not allow this administration to box us in, right now, okay?” Flynn tells Kislyak in a call on December 29, 2016, asking Russia to make its response “reciprocal.” He doesn’t want to create a situation where “everybody's got to go back and forth and everybody's got to be the tough guy here, you know?”
“We don't need that right now,” Flynn says. “We need cool heads to prevail, and uh, and we need to be very steady about what we're going to do because we have absolutely a common uh. threat in the Middle East right now.”
Two days later, on December 31, Kislyak informs Flynn that their conversation “was taken into account” in Moscow. In fact, President Vladimir Putin decided not to retaliate at all, saying he didn’t want to ruin the holidays for American diplomats and their families.
Flynn called this decision “wise.” Kislyak then said something that would turn out to be prophetic – that Russia judged these actions by the Obama administration to be aimed not just against Moscow, but against Trump.
“And I just wanted to tell you that we found that these actions have targeted not only against Russia, but also against the president-elect… and with all our rights to respond we have decided not to act now because, it's because people are dissatisfied with the loss of elections and, and it’s very deplorable,” the ambassador said.
Margot Cleveland
@ProfMJCleveland
Replying to @ProfMJCleveland
6/ Read the --- damn transcript! General Flynn did not interfere with the Obama administration. The Obama administration interfered with the Trump administration.
Margot Cleveland
The events that unfolded proved Kislyak correct. The pretext for the FBI and DOJ to go after Flynn was that he supposedly violated the Logan Act – an archaic law banning ordinary Americans from conducting foreign policy, but which did not apply to him as the incoming presidential adviser anyway. Instead, what the transcripts show is that the outgoing administration was seeking to sabotage the incoming one.
On January 4, 2017, FBI agent Peter Strzok – who had previously vowed to “stop” Trump from getting elected in texts with colleague and lover Lisa Page – improperly ordered the FBI background investigation of Flynn to stay open. The following day, FBI chief James Comey went to the White House and discussed investigating Flynn with Obama personally. On that same day, January 5, the president’s chief of staff sent a request to the NSA to “unmask” Flynn. All of this was revealed only a month ago, in documents presented as evidence in the trial of Flynn for allegedly lying about the calls.
Deep State finds a work-around to prevent peace with Russia
Russia eventually retaliated only in July 2017, when a Republican-majority Congress overrode Trump and passed a toxic sanctions bill based entirely on unsubstantiated ‘Russiagate’ claims of meddling in the presidential election. Just as Flynn feared, this would trigger a chain of “tit for tat” expulsions and closures that left both countries short of diplomatic staff – and cut off all avenues of further cooperation against IS, for peace in Syria, or anything else.
Deep State, in the guise of politics, is trying desperately to get rid of this thorn in their side, Trump. They, along with NATO countries are doing everything they can to keep tensions high with Russia so they can sell more and more weapons and defence systems to Russia-proximity countries. That's what Deep State is all about. They pull the strings of politicians on both sides of the house and won't be happy until Trump is gone.
I'm not a Trump fan! In fact, I quite despise the man. But the alternative is a country controlled by the wealthiest oligarchs who are singly-minded, bent on profit at all cost, and it is regular Americans who pay the cost. The oligarchs have absolutely no conscience.
==========================================================================================
Coronavirus: Chinese CDC Now Says The Wuhan Wet Market Wasn't The Origin of The Virus
AYLIN WOODWARD, BUSINESS INSIDER
Experts still don't know where the new coronavirus came from.
Genetic evidence has all but confirmed that the virus originated in Chinese bats before it jumped to humans via an intermediary animal host. But where and how that spillover first happened is still up for debate.
Initially, authorities in Wuhan, China, reported that the first cases of the virus emerged at the local Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market.
But following an investigation of the animals sold there, the Chinese Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said this week that it has ruled the site out as the origin point of the outbreak.
According to the Wall Street Journal, Gao Fu, the director of the Chinese CDC, told Chinese state media: "It now turns out that the market is one of the victims."
Samples collected from animals at the market came back negative for the new coronavirus, suggesting that they couldn't have infected shoppers.
Wuhan authorities first informed the World Health Organisation (WHO) about the unknown, pneumonia-like illness that would later be identified as the new coronavirus on December 31.
A majority of the initial 41 cases were linked to the wet market, which was shut down on January 1.
Given that the SARS outbreak in 2002 and 2003 started at a similar venue in Guangdong, China, the wet market seemed like a logical origin. (The SARS coronavirus jumped from bats to civet cats to people.)
But none of the animals at the market tested positive for the virus, Colin Carlson, a zoologist at Georgetown University told Live Science. If they were never infected, they couldn't have been the intermediary host that facilitated the spillover.
A growing body of research supports the Chinese CDC's conclusion that the outbreak's origins were unrelated to the market.
The virus seems to have been circulating in Wuhan before those 41 cases were reported: Research published in January showed that the first person to test positive for the coronavirus was likely exposed to it on December 1, then showed symptoms on December 8.
The researchers behind the study also found that 13 of the 41 original cases showed no link to the wet market.
Similarly, an April study suggested that the coronavirus had already established itself and begun spreading in the Wuhan community by early January.
The identity of "patient zero" hasn't been confirmed, but it may have been a 55-year-old man from China's Hubei province who was infected on November 17, according to the South China Morning Post (SCMP), which reviewed government documents.
Or, it might have been a scientist, Yanling Huang, working at the lab, who disappeared, and her name was removed from the lab's website:
A dossier prepared by concerned Western governments on the COVID-19 contagion >
The 15-page research document, obtained by The Saturday Telegraph, lays the foundation for the case of negligence being mounted against China.
It states that to the “endangerment of other countries” the Chinese government:
covered-up news of the virus by silencing or “disappearing” doctors who spoke out,
destroying evidence of it in laboratories and
refusing to provide live samples to international scientists who were working on a vaccine.
The wet market could have been the site of a super-spreader event
Carlson told Live Science that the Wuhan wet market may simply have been the site of an early super-spreader event – an instance in which one sick person infects an atypically large number of others.
Other super-spreader events around the world have also created clusters of infections that cropped up almost overnight. In Daegu, South Korea, for example, one churchgoer infected at least 43 people.
These instances don't necessarily involve a person who is more contagious than others or sheds more viral particles. Rather, the infected person has access to a greater number of people in spaces that facilitate infection. A market, in which shoppers interact with one another and vendors in close quarters, is one such risky place.
The coronavirus also probably did not leak from a lab
Lingering questions about the pandemic's origin have given rise to a range of unsubstantiated theories. One suggests the coronavirus may have accidentally leaked from a local laboratory, the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV), in which scientists were researching coronaviruses.
Amazing! It started down the street from a lab where they were working on that very thing, but I'm sure that was just a coincidence.
But both Chinese and US researchers said there's no evidence to support that theory. The high-security lab says it has no record of the novel coronavirus' genome, and it follows strict safety measures.
The director of the WIV, Wang Yanyi, told China Central Television last weekend that the new coronavirus is genetically different from any kind of live virus that has been studied at the institute.
Prior to that, WIV virologist Shi Zhengli – who collects, samples, and studies coronaviruses in Chinese bats – told Scientific American that she cross-referenced the new coronavirus' genome with the genetic information of other bat coronaviruses her team had collected. They didn't find a match.
"That really took a load off my mind," Shi said in March, adding, "I had not slept a wink for days."
Today in History: The Sword of Islam Conquers Ancient Christian Capital
by Raymond Ibrahim
American Thinker
American Thinker
Today in history, on May 29, 1453, the sword of Islam conquered Constantinople. Of all Islam’s conquests of Christian territory, this was by far the most symbolically significant. For not only was Constantinople a living and direct extension of the old Roman Empire and current capital of the Christian Roman Empire (or Byzantium), but its cyclopean walls had prevented Islam from entering Europe through its eastern doorway for the previous seven centuries, beginning with the First Arab Siege of Constantinople (674-678). Indeed, as Byzantine historian John Julius Norwich puts it, “Had the Saracens captured Constantinople in the seventh century rather than the fifteenth, all Europe—and America—might be Muslim today.”
When Muslim forces failed again in the Second Arab Siege of Constantinople (717-718), conquering the ancient Christian capital became something of an obsession for a succession of caliphates and sultanates. However, it was only with the rise of the Ottoman sultanate—so named after its eponymous Turkic founder, Osman (b.1258)—that conquering the city, which was arguably better fortified than any other in the world, became a possibility, not least in thanks to the concomitant spread of gunpowder and cannons from China to Eurasia. By 1400, his descendants had managed to invade and conquer a significant portion of the southern Balkans—thereby isolating and essentially turning Constantinople into a Christian island in an Islamic sea.
Enter Sultan Mehmet, or Muhammad II (r. 1451-1481)—“the mortal enemy of the Christians,” to quote a contemporary prelate. (Note: “Mehmet” is simply an English transliteration of the Turkish pronunciation of “Muhammad.”) On becoming sultan in 1451, Constantinople sent a diplomatic embassy to congratulate him; the 19-year-old responded by telling them what they sought to hear. He “swore by the god of their false prophet, by the prophet whose name he bore,” a bitter Christian contemporary retrospectively wrote, that “he was their friend, and would remain for the whole of his life a friend and ally of the City and its ruler Constantine [XI].” Although they believed him, Muhammad was taking advantage of “the basest arts of dissimulation and deceit,” wrote Edward Gibbon. “Peace was on his lips while war was in his heart.”
What was in his heart soon became apparent. Throughout the spring of 1453 the city watched helplessly as Ottoman battalion after battalion made its way to and surrounded Constantinople by land and sea. One contemporary remarked that Muhammad’s “army seemed as numberless as grains of sand, spread . . . across the land from shore to shore.” In the end, some one hundred thousand fighters and one hundred warships came.
Few Western Europeans came to Constantinople’s aid. In the end, less than seven thousand fighters, two thousand of whom were foreigners, made ready to protect fifteen miles of walls, while only twenty-six Christian ships patrolled the harbor.
Muhammad commenced bombardment on April 6. Although he tried to go over, through, and under the walls, he made little headway. Some six weeks after he had started bombarding Constantinople, he was no nearer his goal. At his wit’s end, the sultan held council with his senior officers. Although there was some discussion of withdrawing, in the end, Muhammad decided on vomiting forth every last man he had against the walls in one last-ditch effort.
But first he would need to inflame his men.
So he assembled and exhorted them: “As it happens in all battles, some of you will die, as it is decreed by fate for each man,” he began. “Recall the promises of our Prophet concerning fallen warriors in the Koran: the man who dies in combat shall be transported bodily to Paradise and shall dine with Mohammed in the presence of women, handsome boys, and virgins.”
Notice: Islam's version of Paradise is all about sex, gay-sex, and paedophilia. Apparently, this is the pinnacle of reward from Allah. The Bible reveals a very different reward for people who like little boys and virgins.
Even so, Sultan Muhammad knew that rewards in the now were always preferable to promises in the hereafter. As Sheikh Akshemsettin had earlier told him, “You well know, that most of the soldiers [particularly the dreaded Janissaries] have in any case been converted [to Islam] by force. The number of those who are ready to sacrifice their lives for the love of Allah is extremely small. On the other hand, if they glimpse the possibility of winning booty they will run towards certain death.”
So the “Sultan swore … that his warriors would be granted the right to sack everything, to take everyone, male or female, and all property or treasure which was in the city; and that under no circumstances would he break his oath,” wrote a Catholic prelate who was present. “He asked nothing for himself, except the buildings and walls of the city; all the rest, the booty and the captives, would be theirs.”
Any Muslim still uninspired by the boons of the here or hereafter was left with a final thought: “[I]f I see any man lurking in the tents and not fighting at the wall,” warned the sultan, “he will not be able to escape a lingering death,” a reference to Muhammad’s favorite form of punishment, impalement (which Vlad the Impaler—“Dracula”—was introduced to while a “ward” in the sultan’s court). Muhammad’s “announcement was received with great joy,” and from thousands of throats came waves of thundering cries of “Allahu Akbar!” and “There is no god but Allah and Muhammad is his prophet!”
“Oh! If you had heard their voices raised to heaven,” wondered a Christian behind the wall, “you would have been struck dumb with amazement… We … were amazed at such religious fervor, and begged God with copious tears to be well disposed towards us.” All this “most terrible shouting,” echoed another eyewitness, “was heard as far as the coast of Anatolia twelve miles away, and we Christians were very fearful.”
The all-out assault was set for May 29. Atonement, ablutions, prayers, and fasting, “under penalty of death,” were ordered for the Ottoman camp the previous day. Fanatics of all sorts were set loose to inspire the men to jihad. Wandering “dervishes visited the tents, to instill the desire of martyrdom, and the assurance of spending an immortal youth amidst the rivers and gardens of paradise, and in the embraces of the black-eyed virgins [the fabled houris],” writes one modern historian. Criers swept throughout the camp to horn blasts:
Children of Muhammad, be of good heart, for tomorrow we shall have so many Christians in our hands that we will sell them, two slaves for a ducat, and will have such riches that we will all be of gold, and from the beards of the Greeks we will make leads for our dogs, and their families will be our slaves. So be of good heart and be ready to die cheerfully for the love of our [past and present] Muhammad.
Finally, on May 29, around two a.m., Muhammad unleashed all hell against Constantinople: to blasting sounds of trumpets, cymbals, and Islamic war-cries, cannon fire lit the horizon as ball after ball came careening into the wall. Adding to the pandemonium rang church bells and alarms. After the initial wave of cannon fire, the sultan implemented his strategy: “to engage successively and without halt one body of fresh troops after the other,” he had told his generals, “until harassed and worn out the enemy will be unable further to resist.”
On and on, wave after wave, the hordes came, all desirous of booty or paradise—or merely of evading impalement. With ladders and hooks, they fought, clawed, and clambered onto the wall. “Who could narrate the voices, the cries of the wounded, and the lamentation that arose on both sides?” recollected an eyewitness. “The shouts and din went beyond the boundaries of heaven.”
After two hours of this, thousands of the Ottomans’ most expendable raiders lay dead beneath the wall. Having served their purpose of wearying the defenders down, Muhammad—now mounted near the wall and directing traffic with a mace in his hand—ordered another wave of fresh Anatolian Turks to crash against the wall. They built and clawed atop human pyramids of their own dead and wounded, all while cannon balls careened and crashed— to no avail. Having the high ground, the Christians slew countless. “One could only marvel at the brutes,” conceded a defender. “Their army was being annihilated, and yet they dared to approach the fosse again and again.”
By four a.m. nonstop cannon fire had made several breaches, which the Ottomans’ elite shock troops, the Janissaries—composed of abducted Christian boys indoctrinated in jihad—charged, even as their former coreligionists held firm. An eyewitness offers a snapshot:
[The defenders] fought bravely with lances, axes, pikes, javelins, and other weapons of offense. It was a hand-to-hand encounter, and they stopped the attackers and prevented them from getting inside the palisade. There was much shouting on both sides—the mingled sounds of blasphemy, insults, threats, attackers, defenders, shooters, those shot at, killers and dying, of those who in anger and wrath did all sorts of terrible things. And it was a sight to see there: a hard fight going on hand-to-hand with great determination and for the greatest rewards, heroes fighting valiantly, the one party [Ottomans] struggling with all their might to force back the defenders, get possession of the wall, enter the city, and fall upon the children and women and the treasures, the other party bravely agonizing to drive them off and guard their possessions, even if they were not to succeed in prevailing and in keeping them.
A small detachment of Turks entered the city through a minor doorway which the defenders had left open during the chaos. They quickly planted the Islamic flag, causing consternation among the defenders.
Playing on their worst fears, the sultan cried aloud, “The city is ours!” and ordered his best Janissaries to charge. One Hassan—“a giant of a beast”—slew all before him and inspired other Turks to press in behind him. When a well-aimed stone took him down, he continued swinging his scimitar on one knee until riddled and “overwhelmed by arrows” he was welcomed into paradise by the houris. “By then, the whole host of the enemy were on our walls and our forces were put to flight.” Thousands of invaders flooded in and slaughtered the outnumbered defenders; others were trampled underfoot and “crushed to death” by the press of men.
Crying, “The City is lost, but I live,” Emperor Constantine XI stripped and flung off his royal regalia and “spurred on his horse and reached the spot where the Turks were coming in large numbers.” With his steed he “knocked the impious from the walls” and with “his drawn sword in his right hand, he killed many opponents, while blood was streaming from his legs and arms.” Inspired by their lord, men shouting “Better to die!” rushed into and were consumed by the oncoming throng. “The Emperor was caught up among these, fell and rose again, then fell once more.”
Thus “he died by the gate with many of his men, like any commoner, after having reigned for three years and three months,” wrote a chronicler. And on that May 29, 1453, the 2,206-year-old Roman state died with him, and “the saying,” observed another contemporary, “was fulfilled: ‘It started with Constantine [the Great, who founded Constantinople in 325] and it ended with Constantine [XI].’”
Note: The above account was excerpted from the author’s book, Sword and Scimitar: Fourteen Centuries of War between Islam and the West. Unless noted otherwise, all quotes come from contemporary eyewitnesses and primary sources documented therein.
Thursday, May 28, 2020
This Week's Terrorist Attacks/Stories - 20/21 > Toronto, UK, Australia, Austria, Paris, Texas, India
Deadly stabbing attack at Toronto erotic massage parlor treated as ‘INCEL TERRORISM’
FILE PHOTO. © AFP / Usman Khan
A stabbing attack at a Toronto massage parlor in February in which one woman was killed and another injured is now being treated as a terrorist attack, allegedly inspired by the so-called misogynistic “incel ideology.”
Canadian police uncovered new evidence, upgrading charges in the case to ‘murder – terrorist activity’ on Tuesday. The 17-year-old suspect, whose name has not been released as he’s still a minor, is already facing murder and attempted murder charges.
The attack “was inspired by the Ideologically Motivated Violent Extremist (IMVE) movement commonly known as INCEL,” the RCMP and Toronto Police Service said in a joint statement.
“As a result, federal and provincial Attorneys General have consented to commence terrorism proceedings, alleging that the murder was terrorist activity … and the attempted murder was terrorist activity,” the statement reads.
The term ‘incel’ is short for “involuntary celibates” – young men, who desire to have sex, but are unable to find a partner, and blame women for their unfortunate situation. The incel movement is generally seen as a misogynistic one, as its self-proclaimed members often promote violence against women on the internet.
According to local media, it’s the first ever suspected case of incel terrorism on Canadian soil. Moreover, it’s the first time the country’s anti-terrorism laws have been used to prosecute someone who was not an Islamic extremist.
The deadly stabbing occurred in Toronto in late February when a knife-wielding attacker walked into the Crown Spa parlor which provides “sensual body rub” and “exotic massage” services, according to the establishment’s website. The assailant killed one 24-year-old woman at the premises and injured a second, who managed to wrestle the weapon from him and stab the attacker. The injured suspect was arrested at the scene.
Refusing to unlock your phone? Jail. UK judge sentences activist under TERRORISM law
Paul Golding (center) outside at Westminster Magistrates Court, UK on May 20, 2020
© Martyn Wheatley/Global Look Press/Keystone Press Agency
The leader of the anti-immigrant group Britain First was fined and given a suspended sentence for refusing to unlock his phone and computer to police after returning from a trip to Russia last year, under UK anti-terrorism laws.
Paul Golding, 38, was ordered to pay a £21 ($26) surcharge and £750 ($918) in costs, and given a nine-month “conditional discharge” by Chief Magistrate Emma Arbuthnot at the Westminster Magistrates’ Court in London on Wednesday.
He was charged with “wilfully refusing to comply” under Schedule 7 of the Terrorism Act. Police testified that Golding had refused their demand to unlock his iPhone and Apple computer when they stopped him at Heathrow Airport on October 23 last year, as he returned from a trip to Moscow.
Arbuthnot said that the stop did not require “reasonable suspicion” under Schedule 7, and that there was “no doubt” that Golding failed to comply with police orders.
Schedule 7 of the Terrorism Act, passed in 2000, authorizes police to interrogate, search and detain anyone for up to six hours at UK ports of entry, as well as question people “in order to make a determination of whether they are or have been concerned in the commission, preparation or instigation of acts of terrorism,” in the words of Constable Rory O’Connor, who testified at the trial.
Britain First has been described by mainstream media as a “far-right” extremist group, while its criticism of immigrants has been labeled “Islamophobic.” The group has fewer than 1,000 members and was deregistered as a political party in 2017, after failing to pay a £25 and file the proper paperwork.
Austria: Muslim migrant double murderer mocks his victims, says “Only Allah can judge me”
Jamal A., the alleged Afghan murderer from Wullowitz, is said to have mocked his victims, an asylum officer, and a farmer in prison, according to media reports. He has no regrets. And only Allah can judge him.
“Didn’t want to give away the vehicle”
On the run, Jamal A. passed a farmhouse. There he murdered the old farmer Franz G. Die Zeitung today quoted the alleged double killer as saying that the man did not want to give him his car. That was his death sentence. He somehow found it “not good” that the two people had to die because of him, but “they are to blame for their death”. He has no regrets. He was in daily contact with Allah, and only he could judge him. A. is defended by the “celebrity lawyer” Astrid Wagner, who has represented many Muslim criminals, such as the Graz killer Alen R.
Wullowitz, Austria
At least 11 injured as car smashes into
hijab store in Australia
Composite image: © Screenshots: Facebook/Twitter
At least 11 people have been injured after a car smashed into a hijab store in Greenacre, New South Wales. The driver of the vehicle crashed into another car before aggressively revving the engine and plowing into the shopfront.
Police immediately responded to the scene following reports of a driver behaving erratically, but were too late to prevent the incident from happening.
Dramatic eyewitness footage shows the driver appearing to perform a burnout prior to speeding off from the traffic lights and into the unsuspecting shoppers.
The crash took place at approximately 3:15pm local time. Police immediately set up a security cordon around the scene. They have not yet commented on whether they believe it was an accident or some form of attack.
“The male driver and 11 pedestrians have been injured. They are currently being treated at the scene; however, their injuries are not believed to be life-threatening,” police said in a statement.
Paris burns for 4th night in a row as residents clash with riot police over motorcyclist’s death
21 May, 2020
Paris riot police faced off against irate protestors in the suburb of Argenteuil amid a fourth night of violence following the death of 18-year-old Sabri Choubi in a motorbike accident at the weekend.
Residents blame police for the young man's death, but authorities have repeatedly denied involvement in the crash which took his life, claiming that a police vehicle in the area at the time was not chasing Choubi.
Regardless, the banlieues – high-rise, low-income areas of the city – continue to burn as the community vents its anger at the second high-profile biker accident in the area in the space of a month.
Police conducted stop and search operations throughout the banlieues while being bombarded with fireworks, while protestors in the nearby neighborhood of Bezons lit fires in the streets.
Over a dozen arrests have been made amid the unrest since Choubi's death in the early hours of Sunday morning, while at least three police officers have been injured in the violence.
Frederic Lagache, the general delegate of the Alliance Nationale police union, said there was “no chase or attempted stop" of Choubi, and that the police in the area had “nothing to do with” the young man’s untimely death.
Choubi’s associates, meanwhile, have denounced the authorities’ framing of the situation. “We never said that there was a crash with a BAC [police unit] car… Just that they brought him down. The truth must come out,” an unnamed associate of Choubi said, as cited by Le Parisien.
A procession in Choubi's honour will be held on Thursday afternoon, beginning just a few hundred meters from the scene of the accident and finishing outside the man's childhood home. The wearing of masks is reportedly compulsory during the procession, in light of the coronavirus pandemic.
“I want to pay tribute to him in the most beautiful way,” his father Khalid Chouhbi said. He also called for calm in the area when asked about the violence over his son’s death.
Argenteuil, Paris
Corpus Christi naval base shooting ‘terrorism-related,’
2nd suspect may be at large — FBI
21 May, 2020 2nd suspect may be at large — FBI
A shooting at Naval Air Station Corpus Christi in Texas early on Thursday was “terrorism-related,” the FBI has confirmed. While the suspect is dead, another “person of interest” is believed to be at large.
During a press conference on their investigation into the shooting, which injured one Navy service member, the FBI said the incident was terrorism-related. While the suspect was “neutralized” during a gun battle with Navy Security Forces, authorities are investigating the possibility that a second person involved in the shooting is on the loose.
The incident unfolded at approximately 6:15am local time near one of the entrance gates to the air station, according to Corpus Christi police. The facility went into lockdown after the alarm was raised about an active shooter, with base officials sending alerts warning that “if you are in or near the North Gate get out and away to safety. Execute lockdown procedures – remain indoors and away from windows.”
An anonymous US official reportedly told USNI news the shooter was an “Arab male” who “stormed a gate at the base,” though those details have not been officially confirmed.
The shooting took place just a few days after US Attorney General William Barr announced the Saudi shooter who killed three US service members at Naval Air Station Pensacola in December was connected to Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula to the point that he was “sharing plans and tactics” and even “coordinating” with the terrorist group.
The Corpus Christi base was locked down briefly in December after an armed man was reported on base and taken into custody. The previous month, a man who crashed a stolen vehicle into a barricade at a checkpoint near the base’s South Gate in February pleaded guilty to destruction of government property and possession of a stolen firearm.
Major Terror Attack Averted in Jammu & Kashmir
Image of India security forces in Jammu and Kashmir
Headlines May 29, 2020
Indian security forces say they have prevented a big car bomb attack in Jammu and Kashmir’s Pulwama district. They stopped a vehicle carrying over 20 kg of improvised explosive device (IED). This is enough to carry out a major attack.
Police said the car had a fake registration number and was signalled to stop at a check point this morning. But it tried to rush through the barricade after which security forces opened fire. A few rounds were fired after which the owners abandoned the vehicle and fled.
On inspection, the police found explosives in a drum on the rear seat. They kept a watch and the people in the nearby houses were evacuated. The bomb disposal squads were called in and the vehicle was exploded at the site. This was a joint operation by the army, police and paramilitary forces.
Speaking to the media, Inspector General of Police Vijay Kumar said “The security forces opened fire. The driver managed to escape, leaving behind the car laden with IED. We got intelligence about a possible attack. We were looking for a vehicle with IED since yesterday”.
“The car was kept under watch for the night”, said Dilbag Singh, Director General of Police. “People in nearby houses were evacuated and the vehicle was destroyed on site by the bomb disposal squad as moving it would have been a serious threat”.
Forty jawans of the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) died in a suicide IED attack on their convoy in February in the same areas in 2019. This led India to bomb a camp of the terror group Jaish-e-Mohammed deep inside Pakistan. An air battle also followed.
Over the last two months, there has been a rise in terror attacks in Jammu and Kashmir. Thirty security forces personnel have lost their lives and 38 terrorists have also been shot dead by security forces.
Among them was Riyaz Naikoo, one of Kashmir’s most wanted terrorists and the commander of terror group Hizbul Mujahideen.
The rise in terror attacks poses a major security challenge even as the country fights the coronavirus crisis.
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